'The Boys' star Laz Alonso says Mother's Milk confronting Soldier Boy in the season 3 finale shows 'you don't need superpowers to be a hero' (2024)

• Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for the season three finale of Prime Video's "The Boys."
• Laz Alonso spoke to Insider about his character, Mother's Milk, confronting Soldier Boy.
• Alonso said the scene showed that "you don't need superpowers to be a hero" or do something heroic.

"The Boys" star Laz Alonso is breaking down the satisfying, long-awaited confrontation between Mother's Milk and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) in the season three finale.

"It's an important moment because one of the biggest story points when it comes to the Boys' side of this is that you don't need superpowers to be a hero," Alonso told Insider. "You don't need to have this tremendous advantage to do something heroic and to do something for someone else."

Some of the biggest storylines of the season — Soldier Boy's quest to hunt down every member of his former team Payback and the Boys' mission to kill The Seven leader Homelander (Antony Starr) — culminate in an all-out war at Vought Tower.

Two fights simultaneously ensue in the finale, released on Thursday night.

Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), who has spent months training for the opportunity to fight Homelander, finally gets to throw punches. And Butcher (Karl Urban), with enhanced capabilities due to his use of temporary compound V, battles Soldier Boy for harming Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) and refusing to stand down.

Mother's Milk and Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty), both of whom were at odds with Butcher because of a deal he made with Solider Boy, join in the fight just as he's about to get murdered by the supe's shield.

The rest of the team also chip in to help overpower Soldier Boy, who has impenetrable skin and can emit deadly blasts of radiation.

Kimiko and Starlight eventually hold Soldier Boy in place, allowing Mother's Milk to have the satisfaction of putting the neurotoxin mask over him.

"You ain't no hero," Mother's Milk tells Soldier Boy. "You just another racist piece of shit we can't seem to get rid of. This is for my family."

It's a moment that's earned for Mother's Milk, who has been tortured by Soldier Boy's presence all season long because the supe murdered his family. While some of the Boys succumbed to V24 to level the field in the fight against the supes, Mother's Milk refused because of his firm ethical code.

Alonso said the aforementioned scene highlights the idea that "your courage to put it all on the line for those around you, that's what counts."

"It's not whether or not you have this power or that power," he said. "Sure, it helps. But in that scene, what you saw was everybody elevated, as a team, no one person outshining the other, because we all needed each other at that moment."

It's Maeve who makes the ultimate sacrifice by jumping out the window with Soldier Boy, who's powering up and likely going to kill everyone. Maeve survives and Soldier Boy is put back in a containment chamber, but she no longer has her powers because his blast fried the compound V in her system.

With Soldier Boy defeated, Mother's Milk finally tells his daughter, Janine, the truth about their family history and the role the supe played in it. In response, Janine tells Mother's Milk that he's her hero.

Alonso doesn't know what's next for Mother's Milk, but expects his character to have more interactions with Annie, who officially joins the Boys near the end of the finale.

"I'm so happy that she did because you always have Frenchie and Kimiko, you have Butcher and Hughie, and Mother's Milk was always kind of a floater," the actor said, adding, "Now that she's there, everybody can kind of pair up and have their wingman and wingwoman, so to speak."

"When it comes to the moral core, she was kind of the Mother's Milk of the supes," he added. "So, it only makes sense that now the two people that kind of are the most morally grounded would team up."

Alonso said that Mother's Milk and Annie becoming unlikely, delightful partners in crime was something that "accidentally became lightning in a bottle."

The actor said that viewers "really loved the chemistry between the two characters," so Kripke wanted to continue that in season three, where "they have to rely on each other and trust each other."

There's also still the issue of temporary V, which Vought has been quietly manufacturing this season.

"If we hold onto it as a story point — which I'm sure now that we've introduced it, it can't disappear — Mother's Milk is gonna have to be supremely challenging to those that are taking it," Alonso said, "because the whole moral compass of the Boys has always been against superheroes and against V and how it creates a society of haves and have not."

"And now we've become part of the haves, how does that affect our moral compass?" he continued. "How does that affect our psychology? How do we behave now? Do we start becoming like them? I think that the temp V is definitely gonna introduce a whole new set of internal challenges within the Boys."

All episodes of season three of "The Boys" are streaming on Prime Video.